


There's Something About Sherry

by jadejabberwock



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Just gals being pals, Kidnapping, Minor Violence, Pre-Relationship, Roommates, Spies & Secret Agents, they hold hands yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22823800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadejabberwock/pseuds/jadejabberwock
Summary: The realization that her best friend was a spy came to Andi gradually.There was no dramatic unveiling of a secret trunk full of weapons. Sherry never dropped a tube of lipstick on the ground that Andi accidentally stepped on only to burn a hole through the couch because it was actually a laser. Andi had never even seen Sherry stop a crime in progress with ninja moves.But it was still the only solution to her enigma of a roommate.Of course, being kidnapped out of their shared apartment by people that called her the wrong name was also a pretty clear sign that Sherry was not a secretary at an accounting firm.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	There's Something About Sherry

**Author's Note:**

> I just found this short story file on an old USB drive from a creative writing class years ago. I thought about changing out the names to make this a fanfic, but I'm kind of attached to these two. Maybe one day.
> 
> Oh and also I did no editing other than what I did years ago, probably the bare minimum before turning it in last minute, knowing myself. If you are one of the rare ao3 gems to read something original here and also see any errors, feel free to let me know.

The realization that her best friend was a spy came to Andi gradually. 

There was no dramatic unveiling of a secret trunk full of weapons. Sherry never dropped a tube of lipstick on the ground that Andi accidentally stepped on only to burn a hole through the couch because it was actually a laser. Andi had never even seen Sherry stop a crime in progress with ninja moves. 

But it was still the only solution to her enigma of a roommate. 

Of course, being kidnapped out of their shared apartment by people that called her the wrong name was also a pretty clear sign that Sherry was not a secretary at an accounting firm. 

She always imagined that being kidnapped would be a deeply uncomfortable experience. In suspense stories, the attackers punch the victim and mock and laugh and do other evil things. Maybe threaten extreme bodily harm or cackle about their master plan. Though that didn’t sound much like Ludlum. More like a TV movie on Nickelodeon, a channel she admittedly left running for background noise while was on her computer.

But the bag over her head wasn’t scratchy or hot. Although that did make sense. They lived in an apartment in the suburbs of Los Angeles, not Uganda or something. The bag wouldn’t be made out of canvas. Andi didn’t even know a store where people could buy scratchy, canvas kidnapping hoods, though they probably wouldn’t be sold under that name. 

In fact, the bag felt more like a pillowcase. Made of a thick, white cotton blend, it smelled faintly like lavender scented Febreeze. It was not an especially fresh scent, more like it was something sprayed over the fabric often enough for the artificial plant smell to become ingrained in the fabric. 

Andi was gagged as well, but just by a strip of duct tape. It was the first thing the intruders did, after chasing her into the living room. With frustratingly quick moves, one of them tackled her to the ground, another slapped duct tape over her mouth, then the bag went over her head and Andi became a compliant little ragdoll.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Kipper,” one of them said. A man, though the voice sounded too high-pitched to be coming from that far above her. He sounded like a pre-adolescent altar boy perched on top of a ladder, or like he’d taken one too many swift kicks between his legs. Which, considering his job occupation of kidnapping, wasn’t unlikely. “Continue to cooperate and we’ll have you back home this time tomorrow.”

_ With a bullet between my eyes? _ She wanted to protest that, no, sorry, you are kidnapping the wrong roommate. Miss Kipper is out at the moment, but if you’d be kind enough to leave your name and number she will present herself hands cuffed at her next available time.

Her knees were shaking as if she was about to give a speech without the benefit of a computer screen between her and the crowd. Wasn’t she supposed to fight back or something? Step on an instep or elbow someone in the throat. But she was held firmly by the kidnappers on either side of her, each gripping her upper arm and wrist in order to lead her down two flights of stairs and outside.

It’s the middle of the afternoon, Andi thought. Wasn’t there supposed to be a nosy neighbor down the hall who asked why these people were leading her out with a pillowcase over her head? She tripped on the stairs and her legs pedaled aimlessly for a couple more steps as her kidnappers felt no need to stop. Carrying her out, more like. But Mrs. O’Connell down the hall was nocturnal and only left the apartment at night to walk her Yorkies. And their only other neighbors was some Indian family that neither her nor Sherry had seen, only smelled when their cooking was spicy enough to permeate the hallway and their nostrils. 

Turn, turn, and there was a rush of dry heat against her skin. They were outside. Her blood felt heavy as it thumped in her veins and she struggled for the first time since she had opened the front door, what, two minutes ago? She kicked out, but one of them used the momentum to grab her ankles and guide her feet first into something higher up. A trunk, she thought as she was dropped into a hole. Her hands went to the bottom of the pillowcase, but one of the kidnappers smacked them away. 

“Ah ah ah,” Squeaky said. “Not yet. We’ll keep you in the dark for a little while longer, Miss Kipper.” There was a rustle and Andi held up her hands as if she could use the Force. She wished she had actually seen Sherry take down some gun wielding mugger in the streets with a well-placed high kick, because then she would at least be sure her spy of a best friend could help her. Something hard hit her temple and she crumpled into darkness. 

***

Sherry held her key ring in her left hand and wondered why she always loaded up her dominant arm, the right, with groceries. With awkward flicks of her wrist, she finally had the right key inserted into the door. 

“Andi! I bought food, but I’m wiped,” she said as she lowered her grocery arm and let the bags rest on the ground. She stretched it out and grimaced at the red indents around her wrist. Someday she would learn to take two trips, but it could wait until she was diagnosed with something that would give her a reason. “I’m thinking Chinese. I call, you pick it up. Andi?” 

She left the groceries in their grey, plastic huddle in the middle of the ground and peeked into the living room. The lights were on and Andi’s photography umbrellas were arranged around her computer desk, but there was no roommate wearing thick headphones behind them. 

In her pocket, Sherry’s phone started thrumming with heartbeat vibrations. She frowned and looked back at the entrance hallway. Andi’s key and wallet combo was hanging on a hook by the door. She went towards Andi’s bedroom that her friend used only as a bed and a closet—with clothes using every space but the actual closet—but maybe her video necessitated a midday nap. 

“Sherry Kipper,” she answered her phone as she knocked on the door. There was a silence, both from inside the room and from her phone. She glanced at the screen. It was her work number, though from an extension she didn’t know off the top of her head.

“Hello?”

“Miss Kipper, we were alerted by Bergenson Pharmaceuticals that you were…in their hands.”

“No, ma’am,” Sherri replied. She knocked harder on Andi’s door. The last time she had walked in without warning was two years ago when they were still adjusting to roommate life. That was when she learned that despite the cornucopia of clothing covering the floor, Andi slept without  _ any _ covering. Not blankets. Not underwear. “I took the photos yesterday without any complications. The flash drive will be in your hands as soon as I get to work tomorrow.”

She covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Andi, I’m coming in okay?” She closed her eyes to a squint and inched the door open. 

“Then there has been a mistake,” said the tinny voice on the phone. “Come in as soon as possible with the flash drive. We have a situation.”

Andi’s room was empty.

“We were called and told that you had been taken and would be detained until the information you…acquired…is returned.”

Her head felt light, like she had sucked up enough helium to float away. “Did they say how they took me?” She asked. Her voice was surprisingly clear and it popped the balloon she was hiding her darker thoughts in. 

“They had your address, Miss Kipper. They said they took you from your home.”

“Andi,” she whispered and gripped the doorknob in her hand tight enough to turn her knuckles white. She cleared her throat and ran into her own room. 

_ You should buy a poster. One with a cat making silly faces or something. You can put it in that big blank spot above your bed. _

_ If I were going to decorate, I’d buy actual art like an actual adult. _

_ A poster would be better than this. It feels so sterile. _

_ It’s clean. I like things clean.  _

“Andrea Parkins,” she said as she opened the second drawer down of her dresser, just inside the room. A row of Post-It pads on the left, a small cardboard box on the right. “They took my…my roommate. Can we get her back?” 

Her hand was shaking, she noticed. Not focusing on it, she removed the two memory cards labeled with yesterday’s date from the box. Moving to her desk—no crazed wires leading to standing lights or video equipment, like Andi’s setup in the living room; no mostly empty Styrofoam coffee cups—she took out the flash drive from her laptop placed neatly in the center of the clean surface. 

“We will see you soon, Miss Kipper. Bring the flashdrive.” There was a click from her phone. 

“Right,” she told the silence. Sherry stared at the three small objects sitting on her palm and slowly closed her fingers around them. When the apartment door closed behind her with an emphatic bang, one of the gray bags on the kitchen floor toppled over with a crinkling sigh.

***

“I was thinking about wigs,” Andi said watching Sherri’s face. Her friend’s nose wrinkled so that the freckle on the end of it lined up to the one under her eye, but she didn’t look up from her computer screen. 

“That’s a new one. Did it come to you in a dream?”

“Not all of my strokes of artistic genius come to me in dreams, Share-Bear.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Andi giggled and sat on the couch arm beside Sherry. She wasn’t surprised when the laptop screen went down before she could see what was on the monitor. “No, but seriously, some of the other bloggers use wigs and it gives their videos an entirely different feel. What do you recommend?”

Sherry lifted an eyebrow and moved a little further away on the couch to give Andi’s feet some room. “What makes me the expert?”

“I don’t know, you just look like someone who knows her disguises,” Andi hinted. “Like that chick on Alias.”

“Jennifer Garner? I’m honored, but—”

“No, think about it. What type of wig would, you know,  _ fool _ the most people? Not those Halloween witchy wigs, but like the ones made out of real hair. Like, if you were to go somewhere with one of them on, no one would even know it was you.”

“Something like this one?” Sherry asked and grabbed the top of her head and lifted. The hair came out in a clump with a bloody piece of scalp attached. She looked at it in her hand, smirked, and tossed it at Andi’s face where it hit scalp first with a squishy impact. 

“Gross,” Andi groaned and opened her eyes. 

“Ah, Miss Kipper, good of you to join us.” 

Andi squinted past the throbbing of her head and wondered where her living room went. A hand grasped her chin and pointed her face upwards towards a too-bright light. A florescent light above a mirror. Was she in a bathroom? 

She jerked her hands, but they jingled uselessly behind her. Glancing down, she realized she was sitting on a toilet and was cuffed to a pipe. She thought she smelled vomit in the air, but that was probably the bile sitting in her throat, burning her sinuses. Her eyes flicked back up and focused on a little red and white, polka-dot bow resting in waxy black hair, inches from her face. 

“Look at me, that’s it, Miss Kipper. Actually, I think we will get to know each other well, don’t you think, Sherry?” 

Andi looked upwards. The woman could go to a costume party as a stodgy Minnie Mouse, as she looked right now. Black clothes, white skin, and red dots. No ears though. Andi felt a trickle of wetness down her ear and wiped it on her shoulder. She looked at her shoulder. More red. Her temple ached like there was a sword sticking out of it, but when she looked at her reflection in the mirror, there was nothing but a red cut clumping her bangs up on one side. 

“Damnit,” Minnie cursed and spittle flew onto Andi’s face. “You hit her too hard. Look at her eyes.”

“It’s easier this way. Move,” said a squeaky voice. A tall form took shape in front of her. “Alright Sherry, we can make this very quick. Tell us where you put the photos and we will let you go.”

“I’m not Miss Kipper. Or Sherry,” she said. “I’m Andi.” Her voice quavered and she noticed that her arms were covered in goosebumps. 

_ Andrea Jane, you are a terrible liar, _ she remembered her mother once telling her when she was five and covered in chocolate. Andi’s voice sounded the same as then, all wiggly and lying, but this time she was honest. 

“No, really. I’m her roommate. I live with Sherry.” There, that sounded more decisive. “She’s a spy.” Didn’t mean to say that. She clamped her lips shut.

The man with the squeaky voice looked at her with mournful brown eyes. If the lady was Minnie Mouse, then he could be one of Mrs. O’Connell’s little dogs with the same high-pitched bark. He nodded. “Sherry is not a spy. She’s a thief, do you understand? She took something important to our company and we were hired to get it back.”

“Oh,” Andi said. “I stole some lipstick once.” 

Squeaky-Puppy Man grimaced and grabbed the hair at the back of her head. She whimpered as her throat was stretched out. He looked at her and Andi stared back, but with less anger and more desperate hope that Sherry would burst into the little bathroom soon with an Uzi and some moist towelettes. The California desert heat was easily winning the battle against a non-existent AC, especially in the cramped, tiled room.

“We grabbed the wrong girl,” he said, tossing her head back against the wall. He turned to his accomplice. Minnie’s face was turning a mottled red color to match the dots in her bow. 

“What do we do with this one then?” Minnie asked. 

Andi gulped and thought about all the collateral damage that isn’t shown in movies. Like Bruce Willis might have shot a couple hundred people in Die Hard, but she didn’t know if their mouth was dry like hers was or if the room they died in smelled like Lysol or if their ear drums were pounding so hard they couldn’t hear the click of the hammer on Bruce’s gun.

“Leave her. We’ll call the boss and maybe they’ll be able to file a patent before tomorrow.”

Andi tried to hold her breath, afraid that if she let it out in a gust that they would change their mind.

“She’s seen us though,” Minnie protested and her hand was fingering something in the small of her back.

“She’s concussed. She hasn’t seen anything.” Thank you, Squeaky, thank you.

Minnie’s hand left its position and Andi almost wished there was duct tape back over her mouth to cover up the noises she was making as she panted. 

“Alright, but we should be sure.” Minnie grinned and grabbed Andi’s face again. She prodded at the cut on her hairline. Andi saw Minnie’s other hand go out of sight, sure that she was going to die right then and there and wasn’t she supposed to see her life or her dead grandma or a white light or something? All she saw was the red of the bow and the red of her blood and the red smear on her shoulder. She closed her eyes.

***

Sherry stared at the No Smoking sign next to the No Cellphones one. She knew that cigarettes could light the higher oxygen content of the air on fire, which would be bad, but what did cellphones do? Something worse? Or maybe the nurses didn’t want to hear family members breaking bad news long-distance style and preferred everyone just went outside, for crying or nicotine or both.

She watched the door across from her. Room 311, Accidents and Emergencies ward. The cops were in with Andi now. Thanks to a lawyer provided by her firm, she hadn’t babbled the way she had wanted to. Instead of, “It’s all my fault, put me in a cell with the rapists and murderers and I’ll get a prison tat of Andi’s face,” she had answered with polite monotone answers. “No, officer. I didn’t see anything. No officer, nothing was stolen from our apartment. Yes, I’ll call if I have further information.” The lawyer was in with Andi and the cops too. 

Andi’s parents would be here soon, but Sherry didn’t want to meet them like this. In fact, she didn’t want to meet them at all. She would prefer to rot in a ditch somewhere over the border rather than be introduced as their daughter’s best friend. 

The pair of police officers left the room, one nodding at Sherry politely and the other writing in a notepad. The lawyer in his sweaty three-piece suit followed, but he didn’t look at her. 

Sherry stood, smoothed out her already wrinkle-less blouse, and entered Andi’s hospital room. 

“So you’re not a spy,” Andi said as soon as Sherry stepped through the door.

“Um, no,” she replied. Andi’s hair was like a frizzy halo above the bandage wrapped around her head. 

_ What do you need four types of conditioner for? _

_ Hey, not all of us can be a L’Oreal spokesgirl, okay? But at least I do something with my hair, Miss Pulled Up In A Bun. _

“That would be cooler than a thief, though.”

“I guess.” 

Sherry picked at a loose thread in her jeans. “Look, I just want to—”

“There’s really no reason,” Andi talked over Sherry’s quiet attempt at an apology, always the one with more volume. “I knew there was something odd about you after about a week of living with you and if I had wanted to not get kidnapped, I should have moved out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sherry huffed. “It isn’t your fault at all. And I am not  _ odd _ .”

Andi giggled and Sherry felt the tendons in her face release from a frown she hadn’t realized she had been holding. 

“But you’re definitely not an accountant.”

“I’ve told you, I’m a secretary.”

“With really long hours and extracurricular activities.”

“Maybe a couple.” Sherry inched her hand over to Andi’s on the bed and her friend took the initiative to grab it. She held on tighter than Sherry had expected, but she welcomed the numb fingers. “I have an innocent face. If I look like I belong somewhere I can just walk in and…” She shrugged, but didn’t meet Andi’s eyes.

“And steal things?”

“No. I mean, not physical things. Just like photos of plans. Ideas. It’s probably worse actually, but it pays better than a desk job.”

“Plus you have the opportunity to be kidnapped and tortured for information.”

Sherry’s eyes went back to the bandage, then wandered down her friend’s form, looking for injuries hidden under the thin blanket. 

“Hey, sorry, bad joke. I wasn’t tortured.” Andi squeezed Sherry’s hand tighter, before releasing it to a more moderate hold. “But, maybe, I don’t know, it’s time for a career change?”

“I really am a secretary, you know.” Sherry released a breath that got caught in her throat. “But you’re right. And I really am sorry. So sorry.” Her eyes burned and she sniffed. She hadn’t brought any tissues, but hospital rooms usually have some stashed somewhere, right?

“Stop it. Look at me. Good. Now we are going to put fourteen locks on our door and a peephole, but this is not something you should be sorry for. I’m going to buy Minnie Mouse ears once we get back to our apartment and we will reenact this exact situation on camera and the video will go viral on YouTube, okay?”

“Okay,” Sherry replied. “But I’m not going to wear any wig.”

“I would never expect you to. You would look terrible in a wig.”


End file.
